Madrid, 20 mar (EFE).-the Spanish fertility society (SEF) has called on the Ministry of health cuts stemming from the economic crisis would not affect the treatment who receive 15% of reproductive age Spanish couples that have this problem and subsidised by the national health system.
The Chairman of the SEF, Federico Pérez Milan, has asked health authorities the recognition of infertility as “a disease of the reproductive system”, whose treatment cannot be subject to personal patient revenue as it does with the rest of the services provided by public health.
“This can generate inequality: the ability to have children should not depend on personal income”, the expert in the presentation of the book Sociosanitario white of infertility in Spain, a country where three of every 100 children born through assisted reproduction techniques has sentenced.
30% Of cases of infertility due to a female cause, by a similar margin disorder is male; 25% responds to a joint problem and the remaining 15% is of unknown origin, as it includes the publication.
Spain has a “very low” birth rates, 1.38 children per woman in reproductive age, below the rate of generational replacement – 2.2 children-.
“This could lead to new socio-economic challenges of supporting more ageing populations and the maintenance of economic growth and assisted reproduction techniques can help to alleviate this problem,” has used the expert.
Has also added that this situation will worsen because increasingly women later initiated his “reproductive plan”, which leads to greater difficulties to achieve pregnancy.
“Alterations in reproductive capacity are, without a doubt, a medical problem, whose assistance and treatment, is not a luxury or caprice fruit of social pressure, but a need to respond to a disorder or disease common in our country, has insisted Pérez Milan.
El doctor Roberto Matorras, head of the unit of human reproduction of the Hospital of crosses and editor of the white paper, has explained that, with the exception of infertility related to age, when “a couple unable to have a son is because there is a disease or dysfunction in the reproductive system of one or both members”.
In this line, stated that it should not be forgotten that infertile couples are not in a position to choose: “they want to have a child, they cannot have it and are facing a problem that is even capable of generating disorders psicoemocionales itself with a clear impact on health”.
Spain is one of the developed countries with a larger number of centers dedicated to assisted reproduction and in volume of treatments – 50,000 annual cycles with a trend of growth of 5 per cent per year probably stands as the third European country.
Both doctors have recognized the need to address urgently the deficit of public resources in health, but have opted to take other kinds of measures seeking the efficiency in management before putting the scissors in reproductive health.
Have also commented that the “gap” between the public and private sectors, together with the economic crisis, can limit access to fertility to a large part of the population, for whom the cost of new techniques can be “inaccessible” and this leads to “inequality”.
Although the cost of these services varies widely, depending on the needs of each patient, approximates to about 2,800 euros in public health and between 4,000 and 6,000 in the private, where two-thirds of the national total of cycles are performed.
The whitepaper on infertility also reflects the inequalities that exist in Spain when accessing these techniques, so that in some communities delay lists are just non-existent while in others, they are “crying” and reach even up to three-year wait.
